Estrategias para mejorar la comprensión lectora

• highlight some benefits of gender responsive actions in livestock production

• identify some of the responsibilities and roles of gender i n livestock production.

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MAIN CONTENT

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Access to and contol of livestock and other assets

Controlling assets such as land, water, livestock, and agricultural implements has a direct impact on whether men, women, boys, and girls can forge life-enhancing livelihood strategies. For example, Namibia has implemented legislation to prevent property and asset confiscation, yet it is still common practice for a husband‘s family to take livestock and other assets from a widow and her children upon the husband‘s death. This has immediate impacts on a woman and her children in terms of loss of food security insurance, potential income, draft power, and fertilizer. Also, in Nigeria, in many communities, when the husband died, properties are not willed to the wives but to the sons and in cases where the widow has no son, the property is willed to the husband‘s relatives. In this case, women have not direct access to assets especially land. Moreover, land tenure is often required to establish access to other inputs such as credit, and often essential ingredient for improving livestock productivity and food security and livelihood improvement. Because of a number of factors that relate particularly to a lack of human capital (for example, knowledge, capacity, political commitment) and financial capital (for example, lack of funds, decentralization constraints), many countries still face challenges in translating legislation related to women‘s access to and control of resources into action at the community and household levels. This impacts women‘s capacity to control and benefit from livestock. Poultry pose an almost universal exception; around the world, women tend to have more control over the poultry they produce and market.

3.1 Roles, responsibilities and decision

In general, women, men, boys, and girls provide labour for different livestock-related tasks. However, gendered roles are not set in stone and are open to change for different social, economic, environmental, and health-related reasons. For instance, in a case from Tanzania, the pastoralist groups of Morogoro and Tanga showed a clear division in gender roles. Yet in times of labour shortages, women could and did perform ―men‘s‖

tasks, such as herding and watering animals. On the other hand, men seldom perform

―women‘s‖ tasks, except in cases where there was potential to gain control over assets.

Although differences, of course, exists within and between different livestock production systems and across regions, women are almost universally recognized for their role as the main actors in poultry, small ruminant, and micro livestock production as well as dairying, including the processing and marketing of milk and milk products.

Increasingly, experience shows that women‘s labour and responsibilities in animal

production remain under recognized and under appreciated by those designing and implementing livestock policies and plans in developing countries. Furthermore, women and girls may or may not control, or be part of household decision-making processes, especially in relation to the disposal of animals and animal products. In the agro-pastoral systems among the Fulanis, women are not allowed to own animals and if owned, they could not sell or slaughter their animals without consulting their husbands. Among the Tanzanians, because they produce food crops along side animal production, they could decide to use their money from the sale of surplus food crops to buy livestock. They could also sell or exchange their poultry without seeking their husband‘s permission. In the intensive systems of Kilimanjaro, milk, which was once under women‘s control, came under women‘s and men‘s control as it became a key source of household income.

3.3 Benefits from gender responsive actions

• The following benefits may be gained from gender-responsive actions:

Working with local women and men (including elders and ethnoveterinary practitioners) and sharing their knowledge can be helpful in identifying disease patterns and identifying more technically effective and cost-effective ways to prevent outbreaks or transmission. Finding out who does what (for example, milking, raising chicks, grazing cattle), who controls what (income, draft implements, donkey transport, grazing lands), who knows what (disease patterns, availability and quality of water, grazing lands, market trends), and who is affected by what helps health care officers design more effective processes of prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of livestock disease.

• Knowing who has decision-making power over livestock in the household and community can enable animal health practitioners to identify ways of building on valuable human capital (for example, men may make the decisions, but women may have specific knowledge). Women and men may be active in a number of roles (production, slaughtering, marketing, consuming) along livestock value chains (such as poultry and dairying). In Vietnam, women control their poultry in operations in which there are only a few fowls, but men tend to control larger poultry operations even though women provide the labour.

• Gender-responsive remedial action can provide more

cost-effective and technically cost-effective responses to disease fallouts such as those experienced from market shocks such as those witnessed in a number of countries affected by avian influenza.

• Health care officers can help improve the livelihoods of rural men, women, and children by ensuring that improved veterinary technology and knowledge are provided directly to those members of the household responsible for livestock health care and production. A more proactive and interactive system of working with clients, including interaction with adult women and younger boys and girls, can facilitate the improvement of overall livelihoods through more effective disease diagnosis and

overall health maintenance.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISES

State five importance of livestocks to the economy of Nigeria and two reasons why women should be empowered in livestock production

4.0 CONCLUSION

Rapid increase in the demand for milk and meat has drawn attention to the issue of gender in livestock agriculture. This has become important as livestock provides employment, income and a host of other benefits to mankind. However, men and women have different needs and face different constraints in livestock production. Applying a

―gender lens‖ to identify and address women‘s and men‘s different needs and constraints related to relevant livestock production systems and value chains is important for determining the most optimal outcomes as well as the most effective use of resources.

The resources needed for production of livestock are not equally accessed by men and women. This has hindered women from commercial production of livestock and thereby contributing to the food insecurity status in the country.

5.0 SUMMARY

• Livestock provides income generation, employment creation, and improved food and nutrition security across different production systems and along different value chains (such as meat, dairy, live animals, hides, and eggs).

• The projected demand for meat alone is expected to increase by 6 to 23 kilograms per person worldwide by 2050.

• Controlling assets such as land, water, livestock, and agricultural implements has a direct impact on whether men, women, boys, and girls can forge life-enhancing livelihood strategies.

• Series of benefits are gained by gender responsive actions in animal production especially in animal disease control.

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

Enumerate some of the benefits gained from gender responsive actions in livestock production.

7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING

Bravo-Baumann,Heidi. 2000.―Gender and Livestock: Capitalisation of Experiences on Livestock Projects and Gender.‖ Working document, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Bern.

Miller, Beth. 2001. ―Rights to Livestock.‖ In 2020 Focus No. 06, Brief 04, August, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC.

UNIT 3 GENDER ROLES IN FISHERIES AND